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I am writing my thesis and when I want to refer to something I will talk about later I use: see section/chapter.... But can I use it for a chapter that the reader should already have read?

Because in French, it would be strange to use voir, and we will mostly use cf. (confer) in that purpose (it can be used for previous and following parts). However, in English cf. doesn't have the same meaning. I saw also q.v. (quod vide), but is it actually used?

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    I suggest you find some theses for the area you're writing in and see what they use; it should be easy to search the text. Personally "see" is fine, or "as already described in..." if you prefer.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Sep 23, 2022 at 8:26
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    q.v. is definitely used in scholarly writing. You can also use "refer to chapter N"
    – Barmar
    Commented Sep 23, 2022 at 23:35
  • Thanks, both of you for your comments. I'll use your suggestions as well as q.v. Thanks!
    – Dark Patate
    Commented Sep 24, 2022 at 6:29
  • Less formally, you can also say "see chapter X above" for previous chapters, and "see chapter Y below" for later ones.
    – Tevildo
    Commented Sep 29, 2023 at 7:12
  • There's always this -- 5 Latin Terms in Referencing getproofed.com.au/writing-tips/5-latin-terms-referencing
    – user57832
    Commented Sep 29, 2023 at 10:36

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One quite formal way of doing this is to use the word supra. Cambridge provides this definition:

used in a text to refer to something mentioned earlier

They also provide this example sentence:

See McHoul note 33 (supra), for a discussion of these possibilities.

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  • It might be worth mentioning that later text is referred to using ante.
    – Tevildo
    Commented Sep 29, 2023 at 7:13

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